Commodore Free Magazine Issue #61 (PDF)

I dabbled with programming as I said, but realized I was
no good! and so had to find another method to pay bills
and forge out a life. I left school and entered a day job I
went to college and qualified as a carpenter/joiner, I
worked for a local company before being made
redundant and moved to another company working as a
joiner, but in the back of my mind I wanted to do
something with computers, I didn’t know what, but just
wanted to do something. I seemed good at helping
others and explaining about machine terminology, so
was there a job in this, My father purchased an IBM
compatible machine but couldn’t really work it, I studied
the machine and soon found out how to trouble shoot
problems and what the Config and Autoexec files were
for. I also scored as a Drum programmer in a local band,
mainly because I
had an add-on
for the
commodore 64
that replayed
sampled sounds.
One of the
sound kits
supplied
sounded like
“neworder” blue Mondays drum kit so I got the job! The
band didn’t last very long and it was so frustrating
listening to drum sections over and over and then recreating
them, but at least when playing live it was just a
case of pressing a button and then relaxing and looking
cool! I was soon called on to help others setting up
computers at home, tuning in TVs loading files general
helping out really, this started to increase and I thought,
maybe I do have something here.
At least this spawned my interest in more musical addons
for the C64 like the Fm digital sound expander, midi
cartridges and the purchase of a real midi keyboard for
my commodore 64 to trigger the sounds, very cool at the
time. My programming experience increased and I could
write some simple applications, my favorite was a wall
paper estimator I still use this today when decorating.
AMIGA
www.commodorefree.com
I moved to an Amiga 500 for a 21 st birthday present and
again was totally stunned by things like tracker music
programs, heck you could sample bits and pieces and put
together your own remix just on 1 machine. I had always
been musically inclined having been taught the piano
from an early age and soon the Amiga had an add-ons
like me C64 in the way of a Midi interface and a copy of
music X, My equipment grew also with various keyboards
and sound modules being added and then I purchased
Drt`s KCs software and again did nothing much but
compose music.
Some friends pestered so much I actually made a few
demos but rely the music was for my own enjoyment. As
I was made redundant again I thought I would try
working as a shop assistant or a PC technician as I had
built some IBM clones for friends and diagnosed various
problems. I went for an interview with Silica shops, after
a successful interview I worked as the Amiga expert. I
was promoted to assistant manager then for a short time
as manager, it was around this time Commodore filed for
bankruptcy and I realized that Silica wouldn’t be able to
function without the Commodore range of machines, so I
left and worked as a manager in a local tool hire shop,
then I moved to my current position as a System support
engineer looking after computer/printer/network and
server problems. If it wasn’t for Commodore some things
would have never happened. Using the Commodore
range of machines meant I was 1 step ahead when it
came to using machines and finding problems.
Here are some of the things Commodore gave me
1 Fun
2 my career progression
3 lots of friends, because I loved computers and so did
they
4 music
5 fascination about how machines work
So it’s a Bye Jack
and thanks for all of the above, you will be very sadly
missed! Most of All thanks for bringing Computers to the
masses and not just the classes and of course thanks for
Commodore and your visions of what could be.
Nigel
Commodore Free (Editor)
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